BY SUE BOLTON
Several years ago, when former Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser Brett Cardinal was working in Papua New Guinea, he got involved in an argument about the economic domination of rich countries. An older man listening to the conversation said to him afterwards "You sound like a socialist". Never having met a confessed socialist, it was the first time he considered that he might be one.
When Cardinal returned to Brisbane and his trade as a refrigeration mechanic, he was shocked at how working conditions had been eroded. He was elected as delegate, signed everyone up to the union and led the first strike in the company's history in Queensland.
Cardinal worked for the union as an organiser for two years from the beginning of 2001. He is now contesting a national AMWU metal division conference delegate position as part of a ticket called Workers Unity.
Cardinal is an active member of the Socialist Alliance. He is the Queensland representative on the alliance's national trade union committee.
"Some meetings at workplaces really amazed me when I worked as an organiser", explained Cardinal. "Some of the employees might be working in absolutely atrocious conditions but some of their first concerns were that while they'd like to get a pay increase, they wanted to ensure the viability of the employer.
"That threw me, because I could not understand why some workers' main concern was to ensure that the bosses' profits were increasing. That's where you obviously need socialist trade unionists to explain that capitalism is always searching for greater profits, so regardless of what your employer might ask of you this year, you can rest assured that next year they'll need something else to increase that profit.
"The prices and incomes accord [between the ACTU and the 1983-96 federal Labor government] is an obvious example of where the trade union leadership in this country, either knowingly or unknowingly, swallowed a dirty big furphy. How could they think that by keeping wages down this would somehow benefit employees and employers would return the favour at a later date?
"We need to explain to workers how capitalism is forcing people to work harder, work longer for less, how the price of educating their children in state schools is going up, and that kids are getting worse education because money is being siphoned off from education to put towards the war on Iraq, for example."
Cardinal says that "some left-wing unions have good policies on social issues like refugees, and Aboriginal rights and equal rights for women. But having the policy is not enough. You need to be able to convince the membership of the reasons why we have those views as union policy.
"You need to have people working for the union who, when issues arise at workplace meetings, such as issues of racism or concerns about why the union spends money putting out stickers saying 'AMWU against the war', can explain the reasons why our union takes this particular position.
"But if the union official doesn't have a clear understanding of class issues and issues that affect working people and society as a whole, that opportunity to educate the members at that particular workplace has been lost.
"If the union is going to continue having good so-called 'socialist' policies but not be able to back that up on the job, the policies are pretty hollow. That's why it's important that socialists get involved in their unions, whether as delegates in the workplace or challenging for union positions.
"The trade union movement for a long time has been in a coma. It's only now with the new leadership of the Maritime Union of Australia in Western Australia, the Workers First leadership in the Victorian branch of the AMWU and the new leadership of the postal workers in Victoria, that I think we're starting to see a finger starting to move.
"But for that to progress, we need to seize the opportunities, challenge positions, remove ineffective deadwood officials and go back to basics. Once we start winning issues on the job and gaining the respect of the members by fighting for workplace issues, it makes it much easier for us to address social issues and get members to look at the broader picture. And, once that takes place, the good social policies that the union has should be able to be implemented rather than sitting gathering dust.
"I've often believed that when workers are in struggle, they tend to learn a lot. For example, I was on a picket line a couple of years ago where the workers had been locked out. I was talking to a group of the workers when one worker said that the problem with jobs in Australia was that lots of Asians are coming here and taking Australian jobs because they're working for next to nothing but won't join the union.
"So I asked them where their boss was from and they said Australia. And then I asked where the one scab was from and they said Australia. Then I said, 'Well turn around, you've got six Vietnamese comrades out on strike with you, and here we are blaming Asian workers for the predicament that you're in when the reality is that it's capitalism and the bosses' drive for greater profits that you should be fighting. And if we're only going to fight the boss with people who are from our particular race or our particular religion, the boss will be rubbing his hands together every time.'"
"If I hadn't been at that picket line, there would have been people in our union who would have agreed with those workers and that would have been another opportunity lost to educate workers on the issue of racism. That's an example of where, if a socialist unionist is not clear on their politics, an opportunity's lost."
Cardinal gives another example of the role that a socialist unionist can play in breaking down divisions within the working class.
"Unfortunately, I've been present where union officials from other unions have demanded pay increases for their members who were classed as non-tradespeople and our union has demanded that [pay differential between trades and non-tradespeople] be kept. This meant that a large section of that particular work force was denied a wage increase. That's certainly not a socialist viewpoint.
"This is a tactic that employers use quite well. They give a section of the work force the feeling that they are somehow better than the other sections of the work force.
"When I was organising the workers at Transfield who were working at the Caltex refinery site in Brisbane ... an agreement was signed where I insisted that there would be no difference in pay between certain classifications. When that agreement went to the [industrial relations] commission for certification, the commissioner questioned me 'Your members who are tradespeople won't be happy that the non-tradespeople will be earning the same amount?' She refused to certify the agreement. So I made a quick phone call to the site and we managed to make it that the non-tradespeople got $1 a week less than the tradespeople, then the commissioner certified the agreement.
"That agreement took several months of explaining to workers the need to bring everyone up to a reasonable living standard, and only then can you really fight united because you're all in the same position. It's a matter of convincing tradespeople that they need to use their strength to lift up the people beneath them.
"When I was trying to unionise workers, they often used to say to me, 'What can the union do for me?'. I think they were expecting me to say "we can deliver a pay increase', but I used to explain that the union is not just about helping workers with their wages and conditions in the workplace, but we fight for our life after work — the education of your children, the healthcare of your families and things like that. Getting workers to see the bigger picture will help them in their struggles with their immediate employer. They start to realise what the employer's agenda is."
[To contact Workers Unity, phone 0438 186 035 or email <workersunity@yahoo.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 1, 2003.
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